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My father, Chief Coastguard at Port Isaac in Cornwall, moved to Atherfield Point, Isle of Wight in 1942 when I was just three years old; and there we lived as a family, Mum, Dad and little me for five years, wrote Jess.
There were seven cottages on the Point, three of them coastguard houses; and almost on the cliff edge there was a look-out hut - made of wood - up some wooden steps to the surrounding balcony of a small room dedicated to a wireless, fog horn, compass and other necessary paraphernalia for keeping an eye on the wartime coast.
I was really terrified of the climb up but loved the little room with its warm electrical smell mixed with tarry rope and sweet tea in vacuum flasks. In an adjacent field an RA searchlight and gunnery unit was based; and our houses were an ideal recognition point for the Luftwaffe.
So the searchlights were often on as we watched the distant drama of a plane caught like a moth in those unforgiving lights -- and although it was our enemy it was impossible not to feel some sympathy for the inevitability of certain death for the pilot and crew.
When the unit was to move out I decided to put on a show for the soldiers and sing 'You are My Sunshine' and 'Mares eat oats' as my mum and dad served tea, cakes and beer to say farewell. Mum organised some sort of stage and curtain out of a sheet -- but I never got up the courage to perform -- which I regret to this day.
One day Dad took me up to the Lookout and said 'You're going to see something now that you must never forget' ....it was the flotilla of small ships on the way back from Dunkirk. I could go on and on but guess you've had enough by now.
Jess, 2002
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